The Forgotten Past
by MarabouChocolate
Summary: Ib gets lured back into the Fabricated world after two years while visiting the gallery with her mom and friend. She has no memories of ever being there, but moves forward through the challenges and danger presented to her. Will she find Garry and remember him? Will they both get out this time? A story based on the Forgotten Portrait ending.
1. Ch 1: The Forgotten Portrait

**Hello people! This is my second fanfic and my first Ib fanfic! If you see a spelling error or something else of the sort, don't be scared to tell me. I don't bite^^ I would be happy if you took your time and reviewed^^**

**Thank you SYKgarden from DevianART for letting me use your wonderful drawing for this fanfic.**

******Edit/20-01-2013/: I made some minor changes in some sentences, put** _itallics _**on one and fat text on another.**** I also made a slight change in here. Can you guess what?**

**I do not own Ib or any characters from the game, I only own Lily. Enjoy.**

The Forgotten Portrait

* * *

"Hey, Ib! Do you hear me?"

"Huh?" Ib turned her head. Lily was looking at her with a slightly irritated face.

"Why don't you me answer when I call your name?"

"Did you call my name many times?" Ib asked a little confused. Lily crossed her arms and looked at Ib seriously.

"I called you exactly five times, miss Air head! But you were just starring at this painting!" Ib looked down a bit embarrassed and felt bad for having ignored her.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do that, Lily." Lily let out a sigh and shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, I can't be angry at you. You starred at this painting as if you were hypnotised. Was this here the time you were at the gallery with your parents?"

"Yeah, it was." Ib turned to the portrait again. It pictured a sleeping man with purple hair and a torn coat, slumped down against a wall. Lily looked at the painting and then leaned closer to see the name of it.

"Forgotten Portrait. Hmm. That's a strange name. I don't see how it is forgotten."

"Maybe it is the man that has been forgotten and not the painting." Ib said.

"Huh. What makes you think that?" Ib furrowed her eyebrows.

"I don't know." she answered. Ib starred at the painting again.

"…Ib?"

"…"

"…Well, if you're not done looking at this portrait I will continue to the next artwork, okay?"

"Sure." Lily sighted and went to the three sculptures behind them, her long black hair and purple skirt trailing behind. Ib knew she was being rude to her friend, but it was something about this portrait that made it hard for her to leave it. As she was looking at it, she started to fumble around a lighter in her pocket. She did not know were she had gotten it, it was just lying in her pocket after her last visit here, two years ago. Ib had kept it in her room since then. Why she had taken it with her to the gallery, she didn't know.

After a while Ib decided to go after Lily. Tearing herself from the portrait, she went to go looking for her friend. Ib could not see her at the headless statues or by the red and white couch, but when she turned the corner she saw her friend standing in front of a blue melting sculpture. She was just about to call Lily's name when she noticed the big painting to her left. It was full of dark colours and had an ominous feeling to it. Ib stood in front of the nametag and read "Fabricated World". The lights flickered for a moment, but Ib took no notice about it. She looked at the mural a little longer and then turned to join Lily at the blue melting sculpture.

" Huh?" She was not there. Ib walked around the corner, but couldn't see her. After looking on the entire floor, Ib noticed that no one else was around. The music was gone too, she realized. Ib had a sinking felling in her stomach. She walked down the stairs and as she suspected no one was on the first floor either. Did they all leave? But mom and Lily would not leave with out me. Ib walked to the entrance, gript the door handle and pulled. It was locked. Odd. The sound of heavy footsteps came from above. Is there someone here? Walking in a fast pace, hoping someone else was here, Ib was on the second floor searching for the source of the footsteps. She found no one but a smear of blue paint that was leaking from behind the big mural she had looked at earlier. On a vim, Ib touched the paint and jumped high when several loud thumping noises sounded behind her. Covering the floor were big red letters.

**WELCOME BACK IB**

Ib starred at the letters. She turned back to the blue paint and saw that the paint had formed words on the wall.

_Welcome back Ib. Come down below and visit us again._

Ib was very confused. She knew she had been her before, but nothing like this ever happened, right? And who was welcoming her back? Not finding any answers she decided to go down stairs. Ib didn't have to search for anything strange for long. A part of the rope around the big fish painting on the first floor was gone and there were blue shoe prints in front of the painting. No. Not in front of it. The shoe prints lead out from the painting! With cautious steps, Ib walked to the opening and stood right on top of the blue prints. They really were coming out of the painting.

Ib was not sure what to do now. Starring at the painting, trying to figure out what to do, she suddenly saw something move in the painting. Leaning forward to see better, she realized it was light being reflected by the moving waves. Wait. Moving waves?! Ib's eyes went big when she realized that not only were the waves moving, the scary fish was gone. Taking a step back in fear of the fish jumping up and eat her, she back into something behind her. Before Ib could see what it was, she was pushed forward and fell right into the painting.

The water swallowed her and she sank. Ib first reaction was to panic. She tried to swim upwards, but she kept sinking no matter what she did. I'm going to drown! But the suffocating feeling of drowning never came. Ib stopped panicking. Sinking even further down, Ib could see very clearly around her. The light she had seen was coming closer and there were stairs in that spot of light.

Ib landed on the first step of the stairs softly on her feet and stood there having the strangest sensation. She was standing firmly on the step as if she would be on ground, but her hair and clothes were floating in the water and moving with the currents. She stood there deciding if it was a good or bad sensation, when she saw something move in the corner of her eye. Ib ran down the stairs as fast as she could. The anglerfish swam past the stairs and saw them disappear but did not care for them or the girl that had been there on them. It kept on swimming, guarding the entrance as it had been told to.

Ib was down on her knees at the end of the stairs, panting. How was all this possible? She wasn't even wet or cold from the water.


	2. Ch 2: The Fabricated World

**Hello, people! Thank you so much for the favorite and the follows. Here is the second chapter!**

**The image I am using on this story was made by SYKgarden on DeviantART.**

**I do not own Ib or any characters from the game. Enjoy!**

The Fabricated World

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Ib was in a corridor. It was big enough for three people to stand side by side in and it was blue. Two paintings were hanging on either side of the staircase, picturing floating pieces of land but with different coloured backgrounds. One was blue and one was red. Ib did not know what the paintings were supposed to picture, but she did know that she had two choices. She could go to the left in the corridor, since the way to the right was a dead end, or she could go back up the stairs and meet the fish again. Ib walked down the corridor.

It didn't take long till a wooden table greeted her with a vase on it. In the vase was a beautiful red rose. Ib starred at the rose in admiration of its beauty, then she picked it up carefully between her thumb and index finger, with the other fingers as support for the steam. When she picked it up, Ib saw a sign that was above the table that she hadn't noticed before. "You and the rose are ?. Know the weight of your own life." Ib didn't know the word, but thought it meant something like being one. How were she and a flower one? Still, Ib felt she couldn't leave the rose here. But were should she keep it? Her pocket was a bit too small for it. She put it in her hair. Ib was happy with that and walked back to the stairs. She came to a halt.

The stairs was no longer between the paintings and were the dead end had been was now a path. What is going on? Following the new path, Ib realized it was a maze after walking into a couple of dead ends, and started over from were she had come from. Ib pressed her right hand against the wall and walked. After going for a long time like this, she encountered a blue door. Feeling the handle, she feelt it wasn't locked and walked right through. The next corridor had a dark green coloure and there were paintings of bugs on the walls, Ib looked at them as she walked past them.

"Hey! It's you!" Ib looked around confused after were the tiny voice had come from.

"Down here!" She looked down and saw...huh? Ib hunched down to be sure of what she was seeing. It was an ant.

"Remember me, you big meany?!" Ib starred. An ant was talking to her.

"Aren't you going to answer?" Ib kept on starring.

"Fine! Hey guys! This is the one who destroyed my painting!" Ib looked up when the sound of humming wings reached her ears. She rose from the floor in a flash when all the paintings come to life and when the bugs went after her, she ran forward down the corridor. The ones she had run past were hot on her heels and she felt the wind from the ones that could fly. Quickly rounding a corner and then another one, giving Ib more space between her and the bugs, she saw a door at the end of the corridor and dashed for it.

"Aaaaah!" A big, black arm shot out of the wall and grabbed Ib by the arm. Ib tore herself from the grip and dodged other hands grabbing for her. At the door she took the green key out of the lock, ran through the door, slammed it shut right in the face of an angry bee and locked it. A big crash from the door told her that the bugs had crashed into it. Not waiting to see if the door would hold, Ib ran through an opening that had two cat eyes on either side of it and did not slow down until she was sure they weren't able to follow her.

Ib slumped against a wall and tried to catch her breath. What was going on? What had the ant meant by me having destroyed its portrait? Why should she remember meeting it? She had never met a talking ant and that is not something you forget easily. It would be even harder if you had destroyed its portrait. Ib didn't know what to make off of all of this. Why did it seem like she had been here before, why was there things that told her "Welcome back" and "you big meanie" when she couldn't recall ever having been here or meeting them?

Those questions and many others were spinning uncontrollably in her head. Ib closed her eyes and shook her head. There were so many questions but no answers. Ib opened her eyes and saw that the red rose had fallen out of her hair. It had wilted a bit and a few petals were gone. When she reached for it, a shooting pain came from a slowly bleeding wound on her arm. It was the same place that the hand had grabbed her and now it looked like some animal had clawed her, but thankfully there wasn't so much blood.

Ib picked up the rose, put it back in her hair and walked down a brown corridor with yellow flooring. She came out into a big room with human sized dolls hanging from the ceiling in ropes around their ankles. Starring at the dolls, Ib made her way to the other side of the room and saw a door. Ib was surprised when the door was locked and not open like the others before had been. Ib jumped when a message in orange paint appeared next to the door with a loud thump.

_We are so happy you're finally here, but it's no fun if you breeze through everything. Which statue has it? Who? Who?_

What statues? Ib looked around. All she saw was the dolls hanging from the ceiling and she couldn't reach them. She stood in the middle of the room when she saw another corridor to her right. Was it there before? Oh well, at least she could continue now. The corridor took another right turn and she was in front of another door. It was locked. Ib was a little annoyed, but had no choice than to go back. When Ib rounded the corner again she saw that one of the dolls had fallen down.

It lay on the floor in a disturbing way with its limbs bended in impossible angles. Carefully she got closer to it, afraid it would come to life like the bugs, and hunched to get a better look at it. The doll was wearing a dark red sweater and dark green pants with a rope around its left leg. It was smiling an empty smile. Ib got uneasy by the doll and started to search around the room and the corridors for a key.

Not finding anything, she went back to the room and rested against the wall beside the one with the message on it. What was so fun with her not getting anywhere? Ib looked at the doll again. Could the key be there? She walked to the doll, went down on her knees and started to search it. She found a brown key in the pocket of the pants. Ib closed her eye in irritation. Why didn't she search the doll before? Ib took the key to the door in the room, but it didn't fit. She went down the other corridor and put the key in the lock of the door and turned it.


	3. Ch 3: The Story Book

**Hello again people! I have decided to try post a new chapter each week. They will either be posted on Fridays as the earliest or on Sundays as the latests. Also, thank you for faving and following this story^^**

**I do not own Ib or any characters from the game. Enjoy!**

The Story Book

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The click in the lock told Ib that the key was a match. The door opened smoothly for Ib and she went in. Now that message made some sense to her. The yellow and brown room was full of the headless statues that had been at the gallery. Some were standing against the walls and some of them were standing in rows in the middle of the room. They were in different colours. Seeing so many of them made Ib uneasy, but she started to walk among them looking for a key or something else that could open the door.

She noticed that they were wearing either dresses or ties. Two statues standing together, one with a red dress and the other with a blue tie, made her think of her parents. She hoped Lily and her mother were safe and not in this world too. When Ib came to the last row of statues at the back of the room, she saw a sign on the floor. "Two and two they go. Who is left behind?" Ib didn't understand.

She continued to walk among the statues, despite feeling uneasy about them. After walking for a while Ib started to mumble the colours of the clothes on the statues as she walked by them. After her second walk around them, she went silent and stopped. Could it be? She walked around, counting the statues. Ib went around again. Two red, two green, two white, two purple, two blue, two pink, two yell-. There was only one yellow statue. Ib looked around the statue after something but found nothing.

Remembering the irritation of how she hadn't found the key at once on the doll, she lifted the statues skirt by its hem. There it was, a yellow key tied to the thigh of the statue with a yellow ribbon. Ib smiled, tied it loose and left for the door. Suddenly she heard something move. Turning around, she watched in horror as the yellow statue was walking towards her, followed by other headless statues! Ib ran out of the room and the statues started running after her. Turning the corner and jumping over the doll went in a flash, but at the door her hands were shaking and she kept missing the keyhole. The footsteps became louder and Ib did not dare look behind her.

Stop shaking. The statues were now in the room.

Stop shaking! They were closing in.

Stop shaking! The yellow statue reached for her.

Stop shaking! Click.

Ib burst through the door and ran down the new corridor. The headless statues were still on her tail, running over those who had fallen when trying to catch their prey at the door. Ib was in a labyrinth again, running and turning corners, hoping she would not run into a dead end. Unfortunately, she did run into one. She tried to go back, but the statues had caught up with her now. Panicking Ib pummelled the walls around her. Where are the mysteriously disappearing and reappearing walls when you need them?! An orange message appeared with a loud thump right in front of her.

_This is so much fun! Will you make it? Will you?_

How was this fun?! Ib's heart sank when she turned around. The statues were slowly closing in on her and she could feel her heart drumming against her ribs. Ib closed her eyes, hoping for a miracle to drop down. A great loud crash sounded in front of her and she opened her eyes. A giant blade had crashed down and was now stuck in the ground and in the surrounding walls, blocking the headless statues' way. Ib couldn't believe it. She slumped against the wall, but fell down hard on her behind since the wall was not there anymore.

She turned her head and saw a new path behind her. Ib got up and walked fast down it, away from the growling statues. The corridor was a dark red colour and went straightforward as far as Ib could see. She was a bit tired of the dark colours and atmosphere this whole place was emitting. Most of all, she was tired of being alone here with only weird messages that kept popping up when they wanted as company. The corridor finally took a left turn and Ib walked carefully towards it.

She jumped when something black passed before her in high speed. She looked behind the corner, but saw only an empty corridor. Unsure, she took a step forward and then another one. When nothing happened, she walked down the corridor at a fast speed. Ib passed a painting. She didn't pay it much attention to it, but she walked a little faster. There was a door at the end of the corridor and Ib felt the handle. The door was unlocked.

She walked into a big, square room with lots of bookshelves that reached the ceiling. It looked like a library, but it was missing a librarian and none of the books had titles written on them. Ib could see a door at the end of the room and went for it. It was locked. She sighed and went around the room. Ib passed a shelf, stopped and turned towards it. There were two books in it with titles written on their spines. The first book Ib pulled out said _"Moving Storybook –Carrie Careless and the Galette des Rois-"_.

When Ib opened the book, it played out its story right before her as if she was watching TV. It was about a birthday party and the one who had made the birthday pie had accidently put the key to the study in it instead of a coin. The girl said something about "just as careless as Carrie" and disappeared behind the curtains. When she reappeared, the little girl was covered in a red liquid and held a key, dripping with the same red liquid, in her hand. "I found the keeey!". Ib slammed the book shut and shoved it back in the shelf. The second book said _"A Girl's Last Days."_ It was a short book and Ib started to read it.

"_Once upon a time, there was a little girl._

_The girl went with her parents to an art gallery. _

_But all of a sudden, the girl realized she was lost…_

_She searched trough the dim gallery, but found neither her parents nor the exit…_

_Scared, helpless, lonely, hungry and thirsty, she fell and hurt herself, putting her body past the limit…"_

The next page had an illustration of a collapsed girl. A girl that looked a lot like Ib. Ib's knees buckled and she sat on the floor with the book in one hand and the other around her wound. Was this what was going to happen to her? Was she going to die here, all alone? She didn't want to continue. What if the thing that passed her earlier would attack her? What if she could never leave this place? Ib was frozen to the spot. Fear and hopelessness was rolling over her, pulling her under and she was close to crying. Before her tears had a chance of coming out, she felt a presence around her. It was warm and familiar. The pages of the book flipped in an invisible wind and stopped at the same page Ib had been looking at, except now the last page and the illustration of the collapsed girl was gone and instead new pages of the story was there.

"_The brave little girl went deeper into the gallery, meeting dangers and solving riddles all by herself._

_She meets a lost person and now she was no longer alone._

_She had a friend, a guardian, and they both went to look for the exit, together."_

A new illustration was on the last page. The little girl was holding hands with a tall man in a dark coat. They were smiling. One tear left Ib's eye and she smiled too. She wasn't afraid anymore. She didn't know who the man in the dark coat was, but she felt like she had met him somewhere. Ib stood up, closed the book and noticed the title had changed.

"_The Brave Little Girl."_

She put it back and went for the door. It was unlocked, but Ib wanted to see if there was anything she had missed. She soon found that one of the bookshelves was missing and a table with a vase stood in its place. Ib took the slightly wilted rose out of her hair and put it in the vase. Small orbs of light surrounded the flower and when they faded away the rose looked even more beautiful than it had been when she found it. Picking it up again, Ib was surprised when she notice that the wound on her arm was completely gone together with the tear. The shirt didn't even have a spec of blood on it. So this is what it meant by being one with the rose. With the rose in her hair again, Ib went for the door and walked through it.


	4. Ch 4: The Message Rumble

**I'm a lousy author. I say I am going to have deadlines and then I miss it like four times. Forget me ever saying having deadlines and I will just post them when they are ready. Thank you for reviewing, favoring and/or following the story! It means a lot!**

**I don't own Ib or the characters from it. Enjoy^^**

The Message Rumble

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The door closed behind Ib and left her starring at the new corridor. It was drawn by chalk. The whole corridor was made out of drawn lines of pink chalk. Ib had seen a lot of weird things so she went, unfazed, down it. The smell of chalk was strong, the ground felt a bit sticky to walk on and it was completely silent except for her footsteps. Walking through the corridor, she felt like something was watching her and soon enough a red message appeared with a loud thump.

_The boring one is not here now._

Thump. A green message appeared.

_We will have more fun this time._

Thump. A purple message appeared.

_You are so close._

Different coloured messages. Did that mean it was different people who communicated with her or something else? Along her way, the messages kept popping up in different colours and told her to hurry or how much fun they were going to have. At first, Ib jumped every time a message appeared, but now the loud thumping was giving her a headache. The headache increased when she got to a cross road with five different ways she could take and the messages kept on piling up around and over each other on what way to take. They were not helping. There was a big loud thump and the wall on the way to the left. It had a gigantic orange text on it, covering the other messages.

_This way._

Ib did as the message told her and followed down the left side corridor. She soon came to a small room with three doors. One to her left, one to her right and one in front of her. An orange message appeared on the wall beside her.

_Open one, close two._

The doors suddenly had drawings on them. They were made with chalk and looked like a child had drawn them. The drawing to her left pictured the bottom of the sea with light coming from the surface, the one to her right pictured a village with two wilted roses and the one in front of her was of a man, hanging upside down in a rope. Which one was the right one? She looked carefully on each of them. The sea drawing didn't make much sense to Ib and when she examined the village drawing she felt regret and a stabbing pain in her heart and went quickly to the last hanging man in the drawing seemed familiar. He had purple hair and a dark coat and seemed to be asleep…Wait! Ib recognized him. It was the same man from the Forgotten Portrait!

Ib opened the door and heard the two other doors lock behind her. She didn't think too much about that, except for understanding the message now, and walked through the door. The door closed behind her and in front of her was a massive thorn bush with yellow roses, all drawn in crayon like the corridor. It was blocking the way. The wines were growing to close together for Ib to crawl through. Ib tried to pull the wines apart, but they wouldn't budge. How was she supposed to get past them? Ib started to fumble around the things she had in her pocket. There was the handkerchief and the lighter. The lighter! Ib pulled it out of her pocket and tried to make it work. After a few tries, she got a small flame from it and set the thorn bush on fire. It burned fast and suddenly the image of a burning painting appeared in Ib's head.

"_Ah…! NOOO…!" The painting was burned to charcoal and the girl took a struggling step back and turned into a pile of ash, the palate knife fell to the floor beside it._

It disappeared as fast as it had appeared and Ib was clueless as to what she had seen. The girl seemed familiar and Ib had the felling of regret in her heart, once again. She walked past the burned wines and came out… into a village? Ib looked confused around her. This was the same village in the drawing. It was even made out of crayon just like the thorns and the corridor and there was only darkness surrounding it. She turned around and went back to the room again and looked closely on the drawings on the doors. The one she had gone through had the drawing of the hanged man and the locked one to the right had the drawing of the village. But, why did she come to the village?

There was something under the drawing.

Ib grabbed a corner of the paper and pulled. Under the village drawing, was the hanged man drawing. Huh? She went to the hanged man on the open door and pulled it of the door. The drawing of the village was under it. What the?! Ib went to the sea picture and pulled its corner to, but she just made a tear in it. There was nothing under it.

Ib was frustrated. Someone or something had fooled her and made her go through the wrong door! She stomped back to the village. Thorns covered the village almost entirely and Ib had to climb over and under them to keep going forward. The first house she encountered was white and unlocked, but there was only story books in it and Ib didn't want to read them. The next house was big, white and also unlocked. Inside the thorns were growing all over the walls and Ib couldn't really make out what the drawings behind them were.

What she could see was two roses. A red one and a blue one, and possibly a yellow one, but Ib wasn't sure since it had the exact same colour as the ones growing on the wines. She didn't want to use the lighter to burn them, since she was afraid of burning the house with it. In the room was a box that said "Pandora's Box". It was empty so Ib went out of the house and continued searching. A crayon butterfly flew past her and Ib jumped out of surprise. It flew weightless around and soon Ib could se more butterflies. They were different coloured and had different patterns on their wings.

Ib looked at them as she walked to the next house, which was frozen solid inside a gigantic piece of ice. The house was dark blue and had a dark brown door with a sun on it, but the ice made it impossible for Ib to open it, so she continued to the next house. It was also white, covered with wines and locked. The door had a yellow heart on it. Ib tried using the key to open it, but it didn't fit. Continuing on the path she passed a lake and a fruit garden. The only interesting at the lake was that it had a moon on its surface and the fruit on the trees were to high up for Ib to reach, so she ended coming back to where she had started. Ib didn't know what to do now but search for something that could help her, so she went into the white house again.

She looked around the room, under the table, behind and inside the books in the shelf, searched the shelf, the clock and the painting on the wall. Ib found nothing and exited the now messy house with books lying about. When she exited the house, she almost tripped over a root that hadn't been there before she entered the house. The root was a lighter green then the wines and it came from a gigantic blue tulip that towered into the sky and spread its roots all over the village.

Except for the appearance of the flower, there had happened two other things. The giant stalk was blocking the way back to the room with the other two locked doors and there lay a net in front of it. Ib picked up the net and tried a few sweeps with it. There was nothing wrong with it, but what was Ib supposed to do with this? A butterfly flied pass her. It was orange with an eye pattern on its wing and Ib followed its path back to the other butterflies. They were all so colourful and didn't try to hurt her, but Ib still didn't feel very safe here. She shook her head, trying to get the bad thoughts out of her head before they made it to the surface of her mind and continued on to the next house to search it.

Nothing had changed and the box was gapping empty, mocking her. She went out again and saw the butterflies dancing about. Ib starred at them, when she noticed that one of them was pink with yellow hearts on its wings. Could it be? Ib carefully got closer and when she was close enough, she swooped the net down at the butterfly. The butterfly flew away and she missed. After a whole lot of running and unsuccessful catching, she finally caught the pink butterfly. Ib sat down on a root and rested. She was warm and tired after all that running, but felt pride in having caught the butterfly. It was lying still in the net, flickering its wings from time to time.

When Ib had caught her breath again she took the butterfly with her to the white house with the yellow heart on its door. In front of the door, the butterfly froze and turned to dust. A surprised Ib watched as the dust flew to the door and covered the heart on it. The door crumbled to dust and disappeared. Amazed, she walked inside. The room was also covered in wines and flowers, but it seemed that it was from here they all emerged. The thick wines were blocking the way to the upper floor. She noticed there was something scattered on the floor. It was blue rose petals, leading downstairs.

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**Yes. I don't post for a month and leave you with a cliffhanger :D**


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